My health challenges haven’t gone away. If anything, they’ve expanded, morphed, asking me to grow in ways I couldn’t have imagined one short year ago.
For a long time, I kept waiting for this season of health challenges to end. I was impatiently more than ready to return to the version of myself who felt fine.
Lately I’ve been making peace with a new reality: I’m not here to go back. I’m here to go through. The goal is to come out of the experience feeling like more of myself, not less.
What I want to write about this week isn’t about a diagnosis, or unending hospital visits, alternative health modalities, or even any singular moment in this healthcare season.
I want to write about the shifts I’ve experienced underneath all of the outward interventions. No doubt, the fear still comes. Old thought spirals definitely still threaten to begin. But something has changed about how they unfold and in how long fear holds me in its grip.
The Butterfly Fairy Tale
I keep returning to the imagery of a cocoon. The caterpillar tucks itself snugly away and, some time later, emerges completely transformed, as if it had simply gone to sleep one day and woken up with wings. But that’s a fairy tale and simply not what happens.
Inside a cocoon, the caterpillar literally comes apart. It dissolves. What was is unmade so that what will be can form anew. New connections, new architecture – a whole new body reorganizing itself from the inside out.
In no way is this metamorphosis rest. It is the most violent, most aggressive thing that will ever happen to it. And there is no version where it gets the wings without first completely falling apart.
That’s the part we tend to leave out when we say that growth is beautiful. The truth is, growth doesn’t come without pain. The reorganizing is the pain.
No Going Back
This is a distinction that I’ve started to make that has helped me see that change is different from transformation. Change happens all the time. Plans are rearranged, routines are adjusted, expectations shift. Change is more surface-level, and usually it’s reversible. Water freezes into ice and melts back into water. Though the surface changes, the core is untouched. The molecular makeup remains the same.
Transformation is not change. There is no going back with transformation. The caterpillar doesn’t get to go back. It’s permanently reborn, and it pays a heavy price to take flight. I think that is one of the harder things this season has asked of me – not to simply change, but to allow myself to be transformed. To be made anew once more.
Slipping Into the Groove
For me, so much of this is happening in my body — in my nervous system, in the old grooves of fear that were indelibly carved so long ago I’d mistaken them for me. I’m learning that they aren’t me. They’re just patterns. The patterns keep showing up, but now they have nowhere to go.
I observe the patterns faster. When I feel fear beginning to rise within me, I name it before it can build and grow stronger. Fear arises, finds no purchase, and gently dissipates. Of course, sometimes this is easier said than done. On tough days, when I’m tired and hurting or even afraid, I can slip straight back into the old grooves as if I’d never left them.
The relief I’ve found even then is in noticing that I’ve slipped into the groove. The awareness itself is doing the work. I don’t have to fight the fear. I only have to observe it early and name it clearly enough so that it has nowhere to take root.
That moment of awareness, that observation, is enough. In fact, it’s everything.
Building Awareness Together
Some mornings fear emerges before I’ve even opened my eyes, but the way I handle it is different now. I can shift through the fear faster. I’ve learned, with very practical applications, that recognizing fear and acknowledging it means that at least I can stop adding to my own pain. I can manage the fear before it manages me.
We are all somewhere on our individual journeys of transformation. Some of us are in the process of dissolving, others are still cooking in the cocoon, while some are almost ready to emerge shiny and new, wholly transformed from the inside out.
Mindful Minute: Are there tools or tips that you’ve found helpful to build awareness and mindfulness while on your own journey? Perhaps you have experience with exercises that interrupt your negative thought spirals. If you do, please share them with others in the comments.
I know others will benefit from learning about the awareness you have gained, and I love reading every single comment!
I’d love your input.
This publication exists to help you become a more mindful and effective leader. As we plan the next season of content, I’d love to know what would be most valuable to you. Your answer will help shape what comes next. If you have something more specific in mind, please leave a comment!
Quick note: This essay touched on transition and the emotional terrain of significant change. If anything in here surfaced something for you, please don’t sit with it alone. Speaking with a trusted person or a mental health professional is always a good idea.